How is the hour-of-day pattern worked out?

Every hourly price is divided by the same item’s average over the 24 hours around it, so a price drifting up or down over the month does not make one end of the day look dear, and the 24 hours are then centred so an average hour reads 1.000. The best buy window is the cheapest run of three hours and the best sell window the dearest. Hours are UTC, with the hour on the wall in the zone most of the market’s players keep beside them.

How much history does the pattern need?

Each hour of the day needs a few days of scans behind it before its figure means anything. The confidence line reads the thinnest hour: settled from ten days of scans, provisional from three, too early under that, and no pattern at all while fewer than half the hours have been scanned. Scanning Normal Alliance US through the night fills the gaps.

Best hours to buy and sell

Pick a market and an item. Every hour of the day shows its typical price, lowest buyout and listings, and the page names the cheapest hours to buy, the dearest to sell, and what the gap is worth after the 5 percent cut.

On Normal Alliance US, Dervish Cape is cheapest from 00:00 to 03:00 UTC (16:00 to 19:00 Pacific) and dearest from 14:00 to 17:00 UTC (06:00 to 09:00 Pacific). The gap between them does not cover the 5 percent cut, so this is a buying pattern, not a flip.

Current market: Normal Alliance US. This browser opens every tool here until you pick another. Address for this market: ahledger.com/timing?market=forever/normal/alliance/us

1MarketEach house keeps its own hours.2WindowDays of scans the hours are averaged over.3ItemKept while you switch market or window; type another below.

Item

Best hours to buy

00:00 to 03:00 UTC

16:00 to 19:00 Pacific · index 0.912 · typical 35s 99c

Best hours to sell

14:00 to 17:00 UTC

06:00 to 09:00 Pacific · index 1.204 · typical 33s 14c

Spread after the 5% cut

-1%

buy at the cheap hours' lowest buyout, sell at the dear hours' typical price

Confidence

Too early

Too early to trust: the thinnest hour has 0 days of scans behind it over the last 28 days. Read the windows as a hint, not a rule.

Dervish Capeby hour · Normal Alliance US

Hour (UTC)	Pacific	Typical	Lowest	Listings	Index	Days
00:00	16:00	36s 96c	30s 50c	17	0.982	4
01:00	17:00	38s	35s	15	0.910	3
02:00	18:00	33s	29s 75c	17	0.844	4
03:00	19:00	31s 33c	19s 67c	21	1.087	3
04:00	20:00	45s	35s 67c	15	1.170	3
05:00	21:00	37s	35s 33c	19	0.893	3
06:00	22:00	35s 25c	33s 25c	21	0.896	4
07:00	23:00	47s	46s	21	1.049	2
08:00	00:00	20s	18s	32	0.909	1
09:00	01:00	47s 17c	46s	18	1.068	2
10:00	02:00	46s 50c	46s 50c	18	1.008	2
11:00	03:00	46s 50c	46s 50c	21	1.006	2
13:00	05:00	18s	18s	23	0.764	1
14:00	06:00	40s 67c	39s	14	1.093	3
15:00	07:00	33s 75c	19s	18	1.404	2
16:00	08:00	25s	20s	16	1.116	1
17:00	09:00	28s	21s	18	0.909	3
18:00	10:00	33s 89c	27s 67c	18	1.040	3
19:00	11:00	22s 34c	18s 50c	25	0.962	2
20:00	12:00	37s 50c	18s 50c	22	1.133	2
21:00	13:00	28s	18s	16	0.666	3
22:00	14:00	35s	22s 33c	18	1.144	3
23:00	15:00	40s	39s	10	0.947	2

Under 1.000 is a cheap hour to buy; over 1.000 a good hour to sell. Days counts how many days that hour was scanned in the window. The same figures as JSON: /v1/timing/forever.normal.alliance.us/6604 on the API.

The whole market by hour · Normal Alliance US

Hour (UTC)	Pacific	Price index	Listings index	Days
00:00	16:00	0.999	1.031	4
01:00	17:00	0.992	1.055	4
02:00	18:00	0.999	1.119	5
03:00	19:00	0.998	1.158	4
04:00	20:00	0.994	1.182	4
05:00	21:00	1.007	1.211	4
06:00	22:00	1.014	1.255	5
07:00	23:00	0.955	0.998	3
08:00	00:00	0.968	1.133	1
09:00	01:00	0.966	1.140	2
10:00	02:00	0.974	1.077	3
11:00	03:00	0.991	1.040	3
12:00	04:00	1.105	0.795	1
13:00	05:00	0.985	0.943	1
14:00	06:00	1.009	0.896	4
15:00	07:00	1.000	0.848	3
16:00	08:00	1.046	0.809	2
17:00	09:00	0.999	0.833	4
18:00	10:00	0.990	0.847	4
19:00	11:00	1.018	0.869	3
20:00	12:00	0.982	0.936	3
21:00	13:00	0.987	0.947	3
22:00	14:00	1.028	0.908	4
23:00	15:00	0.994	0.970	2

Each hour is indexed against the 24 hours around it, item by item across the market's largest positions, then centred so an average hour reads 1.000. For the day-of-week pattern, see market structure.

▸How this is worked out

Every hourly price is divided by the same item's average over the 24 hours around it, so a price drifting over the month does not make one end of the day look dear. The best buy window is the cheapest run of three hours and the best sell window the dearest; the spread buys at the cheap window's lowest buyout and sells at the dear window's typical price less the cut. Forever's history restarts at launch, so a live market's pattern never includes beta scans.

Common questions

What is the best time of day to buy and sell Dervish Cape?: On Normal Alliance US, Dervish Cape is cheapest from 00:00 to 03:00 UTC (16:00 to 19:00 Pacific) and dearest from 14:00 to 17:00 UTC (06:00 to 09:00 Pacific). The gap between them does not cover the 5 percent cut, so this is a buying pattern, not a flip.
How is the hour-of-day pattern worked out?: Every hourly price is divided by the same item’s average over the 24 hours around it, so a price drifting up or down over the month does not make one end of the day look dear, and the 24 hours are then centred so an average hour reads 1.000. The best buy window is the cheapest run of three hours and the best sell window the dearest. Hours are UTC, with the hour on the wall in the zone most of the market’s players keep beside them.
How much history does the pattern need?: Each hour of the day needs a few days of scans behind it before its figure means anything. The confidence line reads the thinnest hour: settled from ten days of scans, provisional from three, too early under that, and no pattern at all while fewer than half the hours have been scanned. Scanning Normal Alliance US through the night fills the gaps.